Does anyone know it it is possible to use a mini PC, The one I have in mind is the Geekom Mini IT 11 with Core i7 - 11390H, as a scene creator for Poser 11.  For rendering this would be handed off to a more conventional system using Queue Manager.  The CPU is a a four core, eight thread unit and the standard unit comes with 32 gig of DDR4 memory, expandable to 64gig.  The Operating system is Windows 11.

That system would run Poser. The lack of a GPU will mean any test renders will have to be done CPU which is mu slower. Then again Poser 11 doesn't even know what an RTX graphics card it so it's probably not a huge loss any way. When you update to P13 that difference will become much more evident. Optix based GPU gender are like 40x faster than a CPU.

My old Poser system was an I7 860 based system, and Poser 13 ran fine on it. 

Thank you both for your replies, the reason for the question is due to the fact that I need to take into account more than Poser.  The machine I use at the moment is still fairly good at renders even thought the GPU is a 1080ti and the CPU can cope when Poser throws the odd Cuda error.   It was an expensive machine just five years ago but the big problem is that I cannot upgrade to Poser 11 as it is not supported by the Motherboard.  The difficulty is that the machine is also used for online banking and, as the other computers I have are all Windows 7, this is the only computer I can use as all the banking webs sites have long since ceased supporting Windows 7.  I dislike having a single point of failure for on line banking which is what I have with my present machine.

With the present cost of living crisis, that is forecast to get worse in the coming months I cannot really justify the massive outlay on a new computer with a spec to do Poser rendering justice.  At present Amazon has the Mini PC in question priced at £645 down from £699 but there is also a £96 voucher dropping the price to £549 and it comes with Windows 11 Pro already installed.  Buying Windows Pro as a standalone would cost me in the region of £190 with even the home version costing around £125 which makes the mini PU a viable option, at least in financial terms.  So the plan is to use the mini PC for day to day stuff, along with online banking, and only use Poser 13 installed on it to create scenes and allow my existing PC to continue to deal with renders until such time as I can scrape up enough to buy a suitable replacement, assuming it lasts that long.   

Thanks again for your replies it does seem it is something I ought to give a try.

hornet3d posted at 6:46 PM Sat, 1 July 2023 - #4469088

Y-Phil posted at 4:22 AM Sun, 2 July 2023 - #4469103

hornet3d posted at 6:46 PM Sat, 1 July 2023 - #4469088

I understand you, and I swear to God that if Bondware would like to do us one the very best favors with Poser, that would be to sell us a version able to run natively on each Debian-based Linux distributions, one of them being the famous free Ubuntu.
Poser and still for a few month Adobe's collection are the last two reasons why I'm still using that damn'd Windows OS... And no: I'll never go to the... "fruity world"...

Actually, I'm learning free tools such as Gimp so that by the end of the year I will able to give up with Adobe's mechanism of patent thieves...
Which also means that Poser will the last reason why I'm still running Windows.

I totally agree with you and would love to have a stable working version of Poser 13 on Linux.  I recently had to replace my wife's machine for the same reason it was Windows 7 but i had that as a dual boot with Linux and she loved it, that said the mini pc had Windows 11 home on it and the whole setup was painless and she seems to be getting on well with Windows11.  It was that experience, the realisation that mini PCs were beginning to pack a punch that sent me down this path.

My sentiments with Adobe is also much the same as yours, I recently had to send some documents electronically and the recipient wanted them sent via as password protected PDF, to do that with adobe you need to  use Acrobat Pro at £20 month, I then remembered I had installed FlexiPDF from Soft Maker some time back but sadly it did not support password protection. I quick visit to the Soft Maker web site showed that the latest FlipPDF Pro 2020 version did have password protection and the better news, outright purchase was £69.99.  Even better news was the fact that, as I had purchased a previous version the price of the outright purchase upgrade was £43.99.  A really hard call to make pay Adobe £240 over the next 12 months and own nothing at the end of it or pay Soft Maker £43.99 and own the program.

hornet3d posted at 4:52 AM Sun, 2 July 2023 - #4469104

Y-Phil posted at 4:22 AM Sun, 2 July 2023 - #4469103

My sentiments with Adobe is also much the same as yours, I recently had to send some documents electronically and the recipient wanted them sent via as password protected PDF, to do that with adobe you need to  use Acrobat Pro at £20 month, I then remembered I had installed FlexiPDF from Soft Maker some time back but sadly it did not support password protection. I quick visit to the Soft Maker web site showed that the latest FlipPDF Pro 2020 version did have password protection and the better news, outright purchase was £69.99.  Even better news was the fact that, as I had purchased a previous version the price of the outright purchase upgrade was £43.99.  A really hard call to make pay Adobe £240 over the next 12 months and own nothing at the end of it or pay Soft Maker £43.99 and own the program.

FlexiPDF? noted, thank you!

Wait... the version that's integrated with DeepL is CHF40 (£35) per year? loool Still need to check pdf24.org: their pdf creator is a wonder, from what I've heard

Thanks to all who responded to this thread.  Well I went ahead and purchased the said mini PC and loaded up Poser 13.  The first big impact is with the preview where the materials are portrayed cartoon like, particularly skin, but other than that Poser seems responsive and I can use my 3Dmouse with no issues.  For scene testing the miniPC will give a test render quite quickly.

Above is the preview screen, while below is a render using the fast CPU preset and stopped after 5 samples, which takes around a minute.

I was quite pleased with this as there is enough detail to decide if the scene works and also check for errors such as people hovering six inches off the deck.

I am going to continue to play but I am happy so far, the unit worked from the box and it took around 15 minutes to set up Windows 11 and install Poser 13.   So far no issues with any On-line banking, PDF creation and all the other day to day stuff which will be it's prime role.

hornet3d posted at 10:57 PM Sun, 2 July 2023 - #4469133

I was quite pleased with this as there is enough detail to decide if the scene works and also check for errors such as people hovering six inches off the deck.

I am going to continue to play but I am happy so far, the unit worked from the box and it took around 15 minutes to set up Windows 11 and install Poser 13.   So far no issues with any On-line banking, PDF creation and all the other day to day stuff which will be it's prime role.

Great news 

If you have two reasonably spec'd PCs, consider using the 'Mini' between banking etc jobs as a network-render 'Box' via 'Queue Manager'...

NikKelly posted at 3:56 AM Mon, 3 July 2023 - #4469143

If you have two reasonably spec'd PCs, consider using the 'Mini' between banking etc jobs as a network-render 'Box' via 'Queue Manager'...

The plan is to use the same machine I am using for rendering at present, it is fairly high spec and five years old but the ongoing issue is it is running Windows 10 and cannot be upgraded to Windows 11 as it is not supported by the motherboard.

As far as looking odd in Poser. Is the system using the Intel Iris XE drivers for the GPU or the Microsoft drivers? And have you set up the preview settings in Poser 13 to use hardware shading on the new system?

I have added a HMDI based KVM switch to the equation so that I can share a moose, keyboard and monitor across both systems.  It is a simple unit measuring 10 X 6 X 3cm with a button on top, pressing the button flips all three items between the PCs and button surround is illuminated blue or green to signify which PC is being controlled. 

Sadly my render machine decided that this was a good time to refuse to load Windows.  None of my backups worked so I had little option but to do a clean install of Windows 10 and activate it.  Despite that, the pair of machines are now working well and I am able to create a scene on the mini PC, send it to the queue and have it rendered by the old render machine.  

All I need to do now is clean up the lighting and then have a good play.

When you need power and dont want to invest (for money or ecology), you can use your mini PC to access a rented VM in the cloud with a super GPU. I do that and uses poser on it. It works really better on it then on my PC.  it's streaming the input / ouput and if your network connection is good it is very efficient.

I took a Zenith for Maker plan at shadow.tech and i'm glad i did.

shvrdavid posted at 7:47 PM Mon, 3 July 2023 - #4469211

As far as looking odd in Poser. Is the system using the Intel Iris XE drivers for the GPU or the Microsoft drivers? And have you set up the preview settings in Poser 13 to use hardware shading on the new system?

Thank you for the question.  It is using the Intel Iris XE and the drivers are supplied by Intel and I have the hardware saving selected for preview. It is having some effect because if I turn it off the eyelashes and eyes go weird.

As for the Linux/Ubuntu version: would appreciate a text based version of the queue manager together with a minimal command line OS that can go on a bootable USB drive. New life for old system or effective use of resources (clean boot, no ballast) on current machine)

lsauvage posted at 2:10 AM Tue, 4 July 2023 - #4469228

When you need power and dont want to invest (for money or ecology), you can use your mini PC to access a rented VM in the cloud with a super GPU. I do that and uses poser on it. It works really better on it then on my PC.  it's streaming the input / ouput and if your network connection is good it is very efficient.

I took a Zenith for Maker plan at shadow.tech and i'm glad i did.

Thank you for input which I have to say has given me a lot to think about.  My present render machine is almost five years old and cost me the best part of £4,000 at the time and is definitely creaking.  Looking at the shadow.tech the monthly prices looked expensive until I started to do the sums.  With my render machine having problems have looked at the cost of replacement which is what started me down this journey.  For a decent replacement  decided I needed to spend in the region of £3000 to get close to what I have but shadow tech want £32.97 a month.  Based on that my £3000 would give me over seven years and my present system cost would give me ten years, not only saving me money but also the time spent reloading my present unit more than once.  

No doubt there may be problems with shadow.tech that I am not seeing at the moment but it does need a lot more research so I am ready should my present unit die on me.

Thanks for the link.

I did the same math, it's a choice, i was considering buying a new graphic card for optix, ... and i found that i can rent a VM with a RTX A4500 with 20Gb or RAM during many years with this money. Cintiq works, i got windows 11, and with shadowdrive or dropbox you can bring you files home easily. It's not supporting copy / pastebeetwen local pc and shadow pc  it's the only frustration i encoutered for 4 monthes now.

hornet3d posted at 8:36 PM Mon, 3 July 2023 - #4469212

I have added a HMDI based KVM switch to the equation so that I can share a moose, keyboard and monitor across both systems.  It is a simple unit measuring 10 X 6 X 3cm with a button on top, pressing the button flips all three items between the PCs and button surround is illuminated blue or green to signify which PC is being controlled. 

An other link:  Microsoft Garage Mouse without Borders  is a software provided by microsoft that is a virtual kvm beetween 4 PC

it's even better as you can copy / paste beetween them.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35460

lsauvage posted at 7:45 AM Tue, 4 July 2023 - #4469243

hornet3d posted at 8:36 PM Mon, 3 July 2023 - #4469212

I have added a HMDI based KVM switch to the equation so that I can share a moose, keyboard and monitor across both systems.  It is a simple unit measuring 10 X 6 X 3cm with a button on top, pressing the button flips all three items between the PCs and button surround is illuminated blue or green to signify which PC is being controlled. 

An other link:  Microsoft Garage Mouse without Borders  is a software provided by microsoft that is a virtual kvm beetween 4 PC

it's even better as you can copy / paste beetween them.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35460

Thank you again for the information and link, I can certainly see how useful how the mouse without borders could be.   My little KVM box  works well but also has managed to simplify and clear up a lot of cabling.

So the project has hit a rather large snag in that the mini PC has begun to decide it does not want to play anymore and I am left with a PC that appears to be powered but there is no video output and power is removed from the mouse and keyboard.  I suspect the unit is overheating but it has now reached the point I cannot multi task even playing a video on Edge and then opening up another page results in the screen going dark.  I have taken system back to day one information and tried using it on minimum spec but the problem is still there.  I do not want to abandon this on what might just be down to a faulty unit so I am going to have another go.

Replacement unit is going to be another Geekom unit, as I was more than happy with the build quality,  It is a Geekom AS5 with a Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU,  1 TB drive with 32RAM.  I will give this a go and see where I go from there, if it fails I might try just one more mini PC before abandoning project but it will not be another Geekom. 

"...Windows 11 ... is not supported by the motherboard."

Check mobo documentation for a 'TPM interface': There are several versions, as 'header' or 'socket', 14 or 20 pins, but may be a budget option to get another year or two from system...

NikKelly posted at 11:58 AM Fri, 7 July 2023 - #4469460

"...Windows 11 ... is not supported by the motherboard."

Check mobo documentation for a 'TPM interface': There are several versions, as 'header' or 'socket', 14 or 20 pins, but may be a budget option to get another year or two from system...

Thank you for the information but last time I looked both Microsoft and the manufacturers agreed the the TPM interface was not supported in any form.  Of course I was over the moon to hear that considering how much I had paid for the board.

hornet3d posted at 9:20 AM Mon, 3 July 2023 - #4469166

The plan is to use the same machine I am using for rendering at present, it is fairly high spec and five years old but the ongoing issue is it is running Windows 10 and cannot be upgraded to Windows 11 as it is not supported by the motherboard.

Out of curiosity, what 5 year old motherboard do you have that doesn't support Win 11? Your AMD Aorus certainly does, but you have to turn TPM on in the bios. (it is off by default for some odd reason) 

shvrdavid posted at 7:35 PM Fri, 7 July 2023 - #4469496

hornet3d posted at 9:20 AM Mon, 3 July 2023 - #4469166

The plan is to use the same machine I am using for rendering at present, it is fairly high spec and five years old but the ongoing issue is it is running Windows 10 and cannot be upgraded to Windows 11 as it is not supported by the motherboard.

Out of curiosity, what 5 year old motherboard do you have that doesn't support Win 11? Your AMD Aorus certainly does, but you have to turn TPM on in the bios. (it is off by default for some odd reason) 

It was the AMD Aorus board that was shown as not supporting Poser 11 so perhaps that was wrong.  It does have other issues though in that it lost the analogue audio some time ago but outside warranty so I am connected to the sound system via a TOS link.  More recently the system will only boot on every second attempt, with every thing unplugged  except a mouse, monitor and keyboard it the problem exists so I am guessing a motherboard fault.

As my first mini PC either had a fault or it could not handle the workload, I think it was the former, I have tried to push the replacement

So I rendered this image using the CPU High preset with all the defaults left as is.

At the same time I had a number of pages open in the browser and I was working in PaintShopPro.  The fan quickly speeded up but that was to be expected.  Every seemed smooth with the render finishing in just short of 12 minutes. 

It is not something I intended to do in the long run as I will use my old machine to render but I wanted to see how this little mini PC would perform and I have to say I am impressed.  

12 min on a mini pc, is not that bad at all.

lsauvage posted at 7:45 AM Tue, 4 July 2023 - #4469243

hornet3d posted at 8:36 PM Mon, 3 July 2023 - #4469212

I have added a HMDI based KVM switch to the equation so that I can share a moose, keyboard and monitor across both systems.  It is a simple unit measuring 10 X 6 X 3cm with a button on top, pressing the button flips all three items between the PCs and button surround is illuminated blue or green to signify which PC is being controlled. 

An other link:  Microsoft Garage Mouse without Borders  is a software provided by microsoft that is a virtual kvm beetween 4 PC

it's even better as you can copy / paste beetween them.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35460

Thank you for pointing me in the direction of Mouse without Borders which is easy to set up and works well.  I now have the setup as I want it with Geekom AS5 used to create scenes as is has good previews and is produces test renders with ease. The Final render is done on my old machine via queue manager. Thanks to Mouse without Borders I have been able to move the old rig out my office, which as now really become my man cave since I retired, and it has been relocated in the garage.  All I need to do is power it up on days when I want to do final renders and then control it from the den.  

So with a little expense I have a much quieter den with almost clear worktop and a lot more space.  In short I am one happy little bunny. 

Well the concept appears to work, this figure was set up in Poser 13 using the mini PC and a test render run to look to see if it was viable.  It was then rendered via Queue Manager on the old render PC, now living in garage, where it was rendered and saved back in to a file on the mini PC.  The only change in the set up was not really related to Poser itself but I found that, while it worked, mouse without borders was a little erratic but it did prove the concept so that was exchanged for Multiplicity from Stardock.

Hey... Hi! Beautiful 🤩😁

More and more I am finding that I do not need to send the render to my old render machine as the mini PC can handle the render.

This render used 4K textures and took just over 12 minutes on the mini PC, no post work has been done so this is as it was rendered.